lkypeter Posted December 3, 2017 Share Posted December 3, 2017 Upgraded from synology 1512+ to 1817+ and added a pair of 60gb ssd as raid 1 cache and noted the following. BTW, am using nas to store files and accessing it via afp from macmini running jriver mc23 to sotm sms200 to ayon stealth dac. 1. No difference in first 5 hours or so as the ssd cache started to fill up. 2. Noted hard disk physical access began to reduced thereafter as files are accessed from the ssd. 3. Less noise from hard disk activity and also less noise from synology fans as the unit also ran with less heat as hard disk temperature goes down. 4. Faster access time when choosing new songs. 5. Sounded better controlled especially with stacato notes with tighter bass and treble rather than leaky decay. 6. Background was also darker. SSD cache is activated per volume basis and i think you would need to have all your music in one single volume to enjoy the cache. cheers,,,,pete Gradient Revolution mk iv Active Speakers, Gradient Stealth DAC, SOTM SMS200 Network Player, Synology DS 1817+ NAS as filer server, Jriver MC23 OSX as Music Server Software, Mac Mini 2011 as Music Server, JRemote on IOS as Remote Controller Link to comment
Speed Racer Posted December 3, 2017 Share Posted December 3, 2017 Why would this sound any different? The Mac Mini is still sending the data via jriver to the sMS200. That means the TCP/IP stack on the Mac Mini is doing EXACTLY the same thing regardless of what you do on the NAS. The NAS is sending the data to the Mac Mini via Ethernet over TCP/IP in both scenarios. How could it sound any different? eternaloptimist 1 Link to comment
lkypeter Posted December 3, 2017 Author Share Posted December 3, 2017 Agree with you that it is difficult to rationalise. From the little i know about computer networking, i understand that tcpip you mentioned does have a thing called retries if the packet fails some integrity test and perhaps there is reduced retries leading to better sound. Just a wild guess. Gradient Revolution mk iv Active Speakers, Gradient Stealth DAC, SOTM SMS200 Network Player, Synology DS 1817+ NAS as filer server, Jriver MC23 OSX as Music Server Software, Mac Mini 2011 as Music Server, JRemote on IOS as Remote Controller Link to comment
davide256 Posted December 3, 2017 Share Posted December 3, 2017 Its still a source of puzzlement to me why my music stored on class 10 SDXC cards USB3 connected to NAS sounds clearer than music stored locally on the NAS's SSD. It's a difference I can't ignore even though it drives my storage costs to $600/TB. The difference both our approaches have in common is that the data bus is in greater use by the file read process during block transmission, less time for other processes to engage the CPU during the processing of audio. I'd love some time to see a walk through at a macro machine processing level of what happens from disk read to encapsulation as an audio packet. However once data is in a packet it's outside audio clocking, that's handled by protocols/solutions before and after TCP/IP packet layer handling. If audio clock integrity is going to degrade it will be before or after the packet layer. Regards, Dave Audio system Link to comment
davide256 Posted December 3, 2017 Share Posted December 3, 2017 8 hours ago, lkypeter said: Agree with you that it is difficult to rationalise. From the little i know about computer networking, i understand that tcpip you mentioned does have a thing called retries if the packet fails some integrity test and perhaps there is reduced retries leading to better sound. Just a wild guess. Error rates with working wired Ethernet are infinitesimal. Retries due to electrical problems can delay audio buffer fill at the receiving end, cause stutter or in worst case "freeze" the playback as unable to proceed. Wired Ethernet is an "interconnect" and any electrical wired connection can cause electrical interactions between 2 connected devices, degrade an analog audio output. So you can potentially hear a difference between wired Ethernet cables based on how they " soothe" the unwanted LRC and electrical noise interactions between switch/router and audio device. Fiber Optics and WiFi do eliminate this particular concern. Regards, Dave Audio system Link to comment
Philippe Bill Posted December 15, 2017 Share Posted December 15, 2017 On 3 décembre 2017 at 6:26 AM, lkypeter said: 5. Sounded better controlled especially with stacato notes with tighter bass and treble rather than leaky decay. 6. Background was also darker. SSD cache is activated per volume basis and i think you would need to have all your music in one single volume to enjoy the cache. cheers,,,,pete tested successfully !! ("Sounded better controlled...") thank you for this info Philippe Link to comment
lkypeter Posted December 16, 2017 Author Share Posted December 16, 2017 On 12/4/2017 at 3:20 AM, davide256 said: Error rates with working wired Ethernet are infinitesimal. Retries due to electrical problems can delay audio buffer fill at the receiving end, cause stutter or in worst case "freeze" the playback as unable to proceed. Wired Ethernet is an "interconnect" and any electrical wired connection can cause electrical interactions between 2 connected devices, degrade an analog audio output. So you can potentially hear a difference between wired Ethernet cables based on how they " soothe" the unwanted LRC and electrical noise interactions between switch/router and audio device. Fiber Optics and WiFi do eliminate this particular concern. Agree that error rates with wired Ethernet is so small to be significant. The same cannot be said for hard disk. I was made to understand that the reading and writing of information on hard disk is a statistical and mathematical model based on complex error correction logic which is now encapsulated on chips. This might be the rationale why your solid state memory sounds better to you. The downside of external devices is lack of RAID protection afforded by Synology and this is why is use SSD cache. If SSD cache fails, it can be rebuilt from the hard disk. If money no object, I would actually use SSD in place of hard disk and RAID it and do away with SSD cache to reduce the additional processing but it is too exorbitantly expensive now for poor me until SSD prices continue to drop close to hard disk. Gradient Revolution mk iv Active Speakers, Gradient Stealth DAC, SOTM SMS200 Network Player, Synology DS 1817+ NAS as filer server, Jriver MC23 OSX as Music Server Software, Mac Mini 2011 as Music Server, JRemote on IOS as Remote Controller Link to comment
davide256 Posted December 16, 2017 Share Posted December 16, 2017 9 hours ago, lkypeter said: Agree that error rates with wired Ethernet is so small to be significant. The same cannot be said for hard disk. I was made to understand that the reading and writing of information on hard disk is a statistical and mathematical model based on complex error correction logic which is now encapsulated on chips. This might be the rationale why your solid state memory sounds better to you. The downside of external devices is lack of RAID protection afforded by Synology and this is why is use SSD cache. If SSD cache fails, it can be rebuilt from the hard disk. If money no object, I would actually use SSD in place of hard disk and RAID it and do away with SSD cache to reduce the additional processing but it is too exorbitantly expensive now for poor me until SSD prices continue to drop close to hard disk. Need to differentiate data errors from timing here. Data has no "clock", its a byte/block pattern of 1's and 0's. Since the advent of the personal computer in the 1980's, there has been zero tolerance for data error transmission in hardware, firmware and software because programs don't work, banks can lose ungodly sums of money from a data error. I am supremely confident that as long as you stay in the data (clockless) domain data sent will arrive identical to what was sent. The issue is when you need real time (clocked) analog output performance, at that point a variety of solutions are used to try to deal with the effects of path latency, error correction re-transmission impacts, hardware conversions, CPU load, etc. These are the places where the clock association originally intended for a data sample (block) can be unintentionally altered. My thoughts on this are that if you reduce the opportunity for mistakes in timing, you have a chance for better sound. Moving data off the drive faster for transmission processing seems to do this. Regards, Dave Audio system Link to comment
davide256 Posted December 16, 2017 Share Posted December 16, 2017 FYI, Synology just released this SSD only NAS product, at $1500 (diskless) it sounds interesting https://www.synology.com/en-global/products/FS1018 Regards, Dave Audio system Link to comment
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